


Book 1 - Student

by montysaurus



Series: The Life And Times Of The Fox Sage [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Fix-It, For Want of a Nail, Gen, OC characters, Uzumaki Mito was wise, love is the answer, oc clan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 06:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17861972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/montysaurus/pseuds/montysaurus
Summary: In another story, an orphaned Jinchuuriki grew up abandoned and unloved, without a family to raise him. In another story, the aftermath of the Shinobi Wars and the Kyuubi attack left many shinobi broken beyond help. In another story, Uzushio was erased from memory with nobody in Konoha to remember its ways. This is not that story. This story isn't perfect, parents still die and children are still orphaned. Wars have ravaged the Elemental Nations and an ancient enemy still plots her return. But remnants of Uzushio found shelter beneath the Tree. There is a family that takes in the little orphaned Jinchuuriki and teaches him the ways of the Sage of Six Paths. People learn to forgive others, even better some learn to forgive themselves.This is a story of a clan that remembered Uzumaki Mito's precept, that for the beast to be housed, they must fill the vessel with love.





	Book 1 - Student

**Author's Note:**

> This prologue is not quite set in stone. I will update this as I get the next few chapters ready. For most of this Naruto and the rest of his cohort will be children, so there won't be any pairings for a while and I plan to largely stick with canon pairings anyway.

Uzumaki Mito was known in Konoha's history books as the wife of the Shodai Hokage, Senju Hashirama. She was an impressive kunoichi of strong lineage, and her stern visage looked dispassionately upon all Academy students through the page of their history books as they studied the origins of their village, Konohagakure. She was known for her sealing skills, her calm demeanour and little else. She came from Uzushio, a faraway place long passed into legend for most of the children of Konoha.

Uzushio wasn’t quite like the other nascent villages forming all over the Elemental Nations. Few knew that it got its start as a place of monastic retreat and artistic contemplation whose people were rescued from Kaguya clan pirates by the Uzumaki clan. The artisans and clerics considered their rescue a portent and bade the Uzumaki make the land of whirlpools their home. It was here that the Uzumaki turned their immense wells of chaotic chakra towards refining their knack for fuuinjutsu into an art that could capture and command gods and monsters. It was here that the Uzumaki clan learned (or re-learned) the teachings of the Sage of Six Paths. Ensconced in their isolated island home, the Uzumaki and the other clans gathered along the way formed Uzushio, a place of peace and contemplation far different than most of the hidden villages.

What few knew about Mito was that she although she loved her husband and did her duty to him and to his village, she was far more practical than he was. Indeed, her outlook on life was far closer to that of her brother-in-law, Tobirama. While Hashirama was an idealist who tried his utmost to see the best in everything, she was far more realistic. This realism was aided by the violence and bloodshed she had seen in her short time as an Uzushio Shinobi running missions against other villages. Over the course of her long life, she tried to attract any of her kin from Uzushio so willing to migrate to Konoha. It wasn't because she considered her clan weak, indeed their skill in fuuinjutsu made them widely feared and respected. No, the reason for her concern was what she saw as the wife of the Shodai Hokage. She saw the viciousness of the shinobi world, and what happened to so many clans who tried to follow the teachings of the Sage.

Although it boasted many individually strong and skilled shinobi, Uzushio shinobi were much fewer in number than the five great hidden villages. All in all, it was too tempting a target. She predicted that every generation would have some conspiracy or invasion for Uzushio to contend with. Her solution to this was simple, try to attract enough Uzumaki and their allied clans to Konoha to bind the villages closer together. In this way, she intended that Konoha would be more willing to defend their ally and that in the case of the worst happening, one more measure to help ensure that the clans of Uzushio would not disappear from the world. The clans of Uzushio were some of the last clans to remain following the teachings of the Sage in their lives as Shinobi, and it often seemed to Mito as if some enemy conspired to eliminate clans like theirs.

Uzumaki Mito would not live to find out that her fears were correct. There was an enemy watching from the shadows, an enemy that had manipulated all of history since the time of the Sage. As the teachings of wandering monks gave rise to an era of empires upheld by samurai, in turn, shattered by rebelling shinobi that paved the way for the Warring Clans era, the teachings of Ninshu were constantly perverted towards violence, death, and suffering. Uzushio was unique in that many of its Shinobi tried valiantly to uphold the Sage's teachings, and it showed in their conduct and approach to their usage of chakra. As they pushed the boundaries of fuuinjutsu, they eventually discovered a barrier seal so potent it could detect all that passed through it. Unknown to them, their secret watcher could not countenance this. If knowledge of this sealing style spread, Zetsu wouldn't be able to move through Shinobi villages with impunity, manipulating and pulling the strings of history as he saw fit. So pull strings he did, this secret puppet master, and soon a hasty alliance of Iwa and Kiri ravaged Uzushio, destroying it utterly.

Uzumaki Mito was a great woman, wise beyond her years. And yet the sorrow of her later years would be that she wasn't able to convince more of her kin to make the crossing to Konoha permanently. Most of those who did were rebels, star crossed lovers, or those simply born with wanderlust, desiring to set roots into faraway soil. The Uzumaki and the other Uzushio travellers who had come over were so few in number they didn't even have their own clan compounds but instead clustered into a neighbourhood that was soon dubbed "Little Uzushio". Only one main line Uzumaki, a rebellious nephew of hers, had come to Konoha with his wife and daughter Kushina. He had left Uzushio due to a political disagreement about his marriage. While she may have been disappointed with this small number, after the destruction of Uzushio she would be hailed as the saviour of the Uzushio clans by the grateful survivors.

History would show this to be more a temporary reprieve to the beleaguered Uzumaki and their kin, and not a lucky escape. The Kyuubi attack happened to plough through Little Uzushio, although thankfully Mito wouldn't live to see it, killing most of its residents. The survivors, newly paranoid from what they saw as the second time their people would come close to destruction, scattered across Fire Country. But this story isn't about them, or at least, it isn't about them right now. This story is about a small clan from Uzushio, the Shiokaze, not a clan of strong shinobi but a clan of toymakers and artists. Their chakra was known for being slow flowing and their chakra reserves small. While this meant they made for sub-par shinobi, it made them suited for making the complex toys and jewellery that made them so loved by the rest of Uzushio.  Two cousins, gifted artists and skilled technicians both, had years ago heeded Uzumaki Mito's call. They, with their Uzumaki brides, had also come to make Konoha their home in the years before Uzushio's fall.

After the Kyuubi attack, only one Uzumaki yet remained in Konoha, the unlucky Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi. In another life young Uzumaki Naruto could have grown up alone, hated and feared by most, ignored by the rest. But happily (or at least as happily as could be given the loss of his parents) in this life, the Shiokaze clan insisted on fostering him. They risked much, willing to defy even the Sandaime himself, but they felt it was nothing less than what they owed Mito-sama and Kushina-chan, to guard the last of her legacy in Konoha. He would grow up with a doting baa-chan looking after him, aunts and uncles to teach him and cousins to play with. His baa-chan knew how to raise a young Uzumaki, having grown up one herself, and she was determined to pass on to him all she knew of their shared heritage. But most importantly, she was determined to fulfil Mito-sama's precept, to fill the container of the Kyuubi no Youko with love.


End file.
